We’ve just been planning our calendar for
that mythical year which is extraordinarily now, right upon us. Roll the drums
and blow the trumpets, 2012 approaches at a rate of knots! Well, I can report
that yes, 2012 promises to be a year of great transformation! We managed, with
a little of that queasy discomfort that arises as one attempts to change a deep
pattern, to design a year that is just that touch more spacious and less busy.

In short, we have put in less workshops next year which I’m sure that those of
you who know us will recognise as nothing short of a mini miracle! It does mean
that we won’t be visiting all our venues in 2012. However, there will be a
whole new bunch of Movement Medicine Teachers out there in 2012 so that means,
more opportunities to dance.

This past week, I received this e-mail from
one of our teacher training apprentices:

I wasn't sure if I should ask you about
this...but it was the third person this week asked
me to ask you.....and asking me actually exactly the same question. What do you
think will happen in 2012? What are the shamans you know saying, your guides.......people
are asking questions like should we have some food supplies at home in case.
Seriously.

And they asked me to ask you.

I have no idea what to say.

I was thinking about it more like a shift
of consciousness and vibration

Do you have any clarity about that?

I’m sure like a lot of you, I have mixed
feelings about all the new age hoo ha about 2012. On the other hand, there
seems no doubt that the ancients, from the Mayans to Essenes, from the
Egyptians to the Hopi and the Tibetans and so many others, all referred to this
time in the human story as The Shift of the Ages or The Time of Great Changes. And
of course Joanna Macy more recently started to talk about the time we have
entered as being the time of The Great Turning.

Seemingly the Mayans and Tibetans talk
about this epoch as being the end of time (not the end of the world). Maybe
that means the end of time as we know it. Apparently, the human body measures
time by attuning itself to the magnetic pulse of the earth. This pulse has
remained steady for a very long time but in the last 20 years, it has gone from
approximately 7.8 cycles per second to between 9 and 11 cycles per second. Mmm,
now that’s interesting. I thought my feeling of time speeding up just had
something to do with me getting busier and older. I still can’t believe that
the big Five Zero is just a little dance around the corner! But apparently, it
may just be more than that.

So, I thought that I would do as I had been
asked and consult my own guidance systems a little deeper. To be perfectly
honest, I had my doubts. It’s so easy to get distracted by the long list of ‘what
ifs?’ that can so easily drag us out of the present moment. Having just taught The
Poetry of Presence for the first time last week in Manchester, I am still
tingling with the simple power and creativity that arises when we enter fully
into the present moment through the body, heart and mind. What a force we are
when we remember that it’s all happening right here and that we are
simultaneously dreaming and being dreamt by life itself. Having said that, the
recent tsunami and resulting nuclear tragedy that followed, and the massive
changes sweeping through the Middle East do without doubt, lead me to want to
listen a little deeper.

So, this is what I heard when I asked……

The end of 2012 is a long way away and also
just a blink in time. Don't worry and tell your friends not to. Dying will come
when dying will come and it's not such a bad thing. You have already taken
thousands upon thousands of shapes and you will take countless thousands more.
Change is constant and yes, there are some changes that are bigger than others.
This much we know - you are the ones who have chosen to be here now. You
are all, every single one of you, designing what will happen through the
choices you make and the dreams you hold. Get your friends to meditate and
dance and purify their fears so that fear only becomes an instinct to act. Tell
them that everything matters. Tell them to grow food. Tell them to dance their
hearts out and every day, to visualise a beautiful outcome to the process we
are all engaged in. And tell them to love each other and appreciate each other
much, much more and to appreciate the life they have been given and this
opportunity you all have to be part of changing the dream that has led you into
loneliness, never ending consumption and despair. Tell them they are artists
and tell them to create together. Tell them to dance and to sing and to walk
barefoot on the earth and to listen to their hearts. Tell them to consciously
create every day through their thoughts, feelings and actions. Tell them that
their thoughts are more powerful than lightening and to use their power wisely.

And then, a day or two later, I found
myself writing to our dancing friends in Sweden about the workshop Alchemy of
Stillness on a similar theme so I thought I’d share that with you too:

Why is Alchemy so important right now? Why
is it worth the stretch? Are you aware of the intensity of life these days - so
much happening in these times that the ancients of so many different cultures
spoke about in their prophecies. So many challenges we face. And isn't it
tempting to just put our heads in the sand and carry on as normal as if
tsunamis and nuclear disasters or wars over there don't really have anything to
do with us.

At the same time, to me it seems as if
there is a tremendous wave of awakening happening, something else the ancients
predicted. We are recognising in our day-to-day realities that we are all
connected whether we like it or not. And the challenges we each face, do you
notice these intensifying too? And at the same time, do you notice how your
practice, whatever it is, is bearing fruit now, keeping you steady as the world
rocks and rolls around you? As I wrote in our book, the kind of work we are
engaged in used to be called alternative. Now, as the knowledge of our
indigenous friends and the knowledge of cutting edge science comes closer and
closer together, it seems that if we are to realise the great potential of the
times, there is no alternative but to study and learn to use the capacities we
have been given for the greater good.

Our son Reuben suggested I watch a BBC
programme on the i-player narrated by Brian Cox. And wow! What a trip that
turned out to be. What a vast place this universe is. And as Mr.Cox led us
through one amazing landscape of discovery after another, guess where he ended
up? At the very end of the programme, he was illustrating the way a river can
be slow and calm in one place but as it approaches the great fall away of a
waterfall, naturally, it speeds up and becomes a very different kind of force.
He compared this to what scientists describe as the black hole at the centre of
our galaxy. As we approach the black hole, we remain in ‘known’ territory.’ As
we get to the edge he told us, ‘this is where science ends and mystery begins.’
Aha! The very same place I used to fall asleep in every night for years when I
was a child so very deeply in love with the mystery of existence beyond the
known.

Perhaps more than ever, now is the time to
remember who we are. Now is the time to be with our own deepest nature, to
recognise that in each other, and to spend as much time as we can with nature.
And this leads me to my invitation for you to join this year’s Movement Medicine
Vision Quest on Dartmoor. Nature is the great mirror, the great healer and
the great reminder of our place in the bigger picture. Spending 48 hours being in
a held space in nature is, I believe, a very fine thing to do indeed. Nature is
just itself. It doesn’t try to be something it is not. It is a fine teacher,
sometimes seemingly, a tough teacher, always a compassionate (in the true sense
of the word) teacher. And to go out and find your place and let yourself cry
out for the direct experience of who you are, what you are made from, what you
are here for, or simply to speak softly and ask for guidance for the next
chapter of the unfolding story of your part in the dance of the great mystery,
is a fine and worthy way to spend some time. I would be delighted if you
decided to take the leap and join us. Dartmoor is quite simply full of magic
and most people who take the time to be with that magic end up remembering that
they are too.

So, dear dancing being made of earth and
fire and water and wind, great shape-shifter of millenniums of time, mysterious
companion on the great adventure, whatever the outcome and whatever forms we
may become, in this moment when we share this opportunity to create together
with life, I send you warm greetings. May all that you have dreamed through the
winter come easily and beautifully into form and may this next season of
growing be the best yet for you, for your families and friends and for all our
relations. I leave you with a little incantation that landed recently.